Over the past few weeks,our Final Year Dutch students have been working with the author and literary translator John Eyck on an English translation of his lyrical essay Boto Banja or the Secret Society of Dancing Writers (2023).
Boto Banja can be read as an extension of De Jong's latest novel Jaguarman (2020), a powerful retelling of the history of Suriname and a personal quest for one of his ancestors, a medicine man from the Amazon rainforest. It was nominated for the Libris Literary Prize and the European Union Prize for Literature.
All students and staff are invited to meet Raoul de Jong and John Eyck for a public conversation and presentation of our translation on Tuesday 17 December, at 5pm in Diamond Workroom 2. All welcome!
The Annual Dutch Translation Project is kindly sponsored by the Royal Netherlands Embassy and the Dutch Foundation for Literature. De Jong is one of the transnational authors who are part of the 91̽»¨ AHRC funded research project Beyond the national narrative.